As the 36-year-old worked on his 28-foot wide pencil drawing, he thought of his father, Larry, who died unexpectedly a year ago.

The 53 faces he drew in his depiction of World War I-era cavalry officers, taken from a photo he found in a local antique store, gave him 53 chances to bring those from the past back to the present. View photo gallery of Chris LaPorte

Prizes in the $449,000 competition were chosen by viewers who cast a total of 465,538 votes in two rounds using text messages, the ArtPrize website and an iPhone app.

During the 15 days they spent greeting thousands of visitors during ArtPrize 2010, LaPorte and Tavonatti came to realize people were touched deeply by their works.

"They felt a personal connection with some of the individuals in the picture," said the Bay City native LaPorte, whose drawing was on display in the Grand Rapids Art Museum, hanging on the same wall occupied for 10 months by last year's grand prize winner, "Open Water no. 24" by Ran Ortner, following the close of ArtPrize 2009.

"To have somebody stand in front of my art and cry means I've done my job," said Tavonatti, whose mosaic was shown in DeVos Place Convention Center, a short distance from the Thursday's awards ceremony.

Mia Tavonatti discusses finishing second at ArtPrize 2010

Liu, whose installation was in the future home of Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts on Fulton Street, was not at Thursday's program in the convention center's Steelcase Ballroom, attended by at least 1,500 people.

LaPorte's richly detailed pencil drawing now becomes the property of ArtPrize, which previously has said it plans to build a permanent collection of its works.

"I think it's a uniquely powerful piece that draws you in more than last year's. We're always drawn to faces," said ArtPrize founder Rick DeVos said.

"Cavalry" was a clear favorite among the 127,000 visitors at the Grand Rapids Art Museum during voting.

"I guess everybody could guess it would be Chris. He had a lot of public support," ArtPrize Executive Director Bill Holsinger-Robinson said after the announcement.

Tavonatti is a native of Iron Mountain, and Liu graduated from the University of Michigan, meaning all three of the top prize winners have ties to the Great Lakes State.

But ArtPrize has attracted worldwide attention, drawing 1,713 artists from 44 U.S. states and 21 countries to the exhibition in 192 venues. Viewing ends Sunday.

"Something remarkable has happened here," said DeVos, who founded ArtPrize as a loose framework to involve people and institutions in the process.

"Everything else really happened on its own," he said.

Tavonatti said her entry is the 17th work in a series of 22. The first 16 were oil paintings. This was her first mosaic on the subject, whose title is "unveiled" in Italian.

"It was a huge endeavor, and I had no funding," she said. "I owe a lot of people a lot of money."

The $250,000 prize given to LaPorte means the 800 hours he estimates he put into the drawing works out to be more than $300 per hour.

LaPorte, who teaches drawing at Aquinas College, his alma mater, said that prior to the award he was "definitely not a starving artist."